At 11:27 AM 11/15/2006 -0500, Frank Drake wrote:
>Note that he has fulfilled his contractual obligation and actually
realizes the benefits of the Ring, something NOBODY else does. Nobody
else renounces love (though how much love Fafner would have wanted is an
open question), least of all Siegfried and Bruennhilde, with the
Goetterdaemmerung disasterous results. Olny Alberich has fulfilled the
contractual conditions for using the Ring to his advantage.
I agree with almost everything Frank wrote - especially the fact that
Alberich is NOT a thief, and I enjoy his pointing out that he is the only
one to truly benefit from the Ring, though the other temporary owners
benefit from the Tarnhelm, if they happen to have it.
I disagree that the succesive holders of the Ring don't forswear love. I
believe they each do. Fafner, who is not particularly articulate,
renounces love in two ways: by giving up Freia (who is "loves" stand-in)
to gain the gold, and more importantly by killing his brother, whom he at
least "should" love. Wotan, after having the Ring for all of twenty
minutes, must, decades later, abandon Siegmund, the son he so deeply
loves, to death in the fight with Hunding. Siegfried gains the Ring
first, then ends up renouncing Br?nnhilde both by agreeing to capture her,
and then in the spear oath and its aftermath. Br?nnhilde gains and loses
the Ring to Siegfried, and joins the plot to kill him in the odd trio that
ends act two of G?TTERD?MMERUNG.
Jim Bodge
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